


The Last Line

by scattered_thoughts_and_ink_drops



Series: The Last Line [1]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-26 01:02:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20381107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scattered_thoughts_and_ink_drops/pseuds/scattered_thoughts_and_ink_drops
Summary: The Last Line is a mix of Fantastic Four and the Avengers. If I can come up with a better description, I will change this.





	The Last Line

**Author's Note:**

> At this point, Dante and Cleo have not been on good terms with each other, and neither of them has mentally recovered from Killian.

###  _ Dante _

Completely drained and exhausted, Dante collapsed in the room he hadn’t set foot in since his departure. He took a moment to just survey the room. Everything was how he had left it, down to the moldy sandwich he had made before leaving on  _ that _ day. 

“At least she didn’t take over my room like she did everything else,” he mumbled, slipping off his shoes and flopping onto his dusty mattress.  _ It’ll be nice to sleep on a soft bed for a change _ , he thought as his head met the pillow.

Sleep came immediately, but it was not as restful as he had wished. He has plagued once again with the nightmare that had become like a memory. 

_ He was running through the wreckage of what once was a child’s community center, trying desperately to reach the center of the fight.  _

_ “Killian, let me help you! C’mon, you’ve trained me for this. I’m not some little kid, you don’t get to keep me on training wheels.” _

_ “No, boy,” he said calmly. Killian turned to face Dante and rested a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. Then on the turn of a dime, Killian’s face distorted into something Dante had only seen in his zombie video games. Blood wept out of the corners of his eyes and spewed from his mouth as he spoke. “How could I ever trust you to fight beside me, when you are the reason I’m  _ dead _ . You can’t do anything right! Never have and you never will. You’ll never be as good as Cleo. All you will ever be good for is your daddy’s money.” _

_ “No, that’s not true!” _

_ “You left when I needed you most! I died because you are nothing but an incompetent-” _

_ “Would you shut your trap, mate.” _

But then the dream shifted to something new.

_ The bang of a gunshot rang through Dante’s ears with only a morbid thud to follow. Slowly lifting his head, Dante turned around to see Killian the way he had been before. His suit a perfect black with a crisp undershirt, top hat sleek with his signature velvet ribbon, and his silver revolver steaming from its latest shot. _

_ “Kil-Killian?” _

_ “Ay.” Killian holstered his gun before looking at Dante with eyes filled with both life and remorse. “You don’t really believe what that thing said, lad. D’you?” _

_ Dante’s silence was answer enough. _

_ Killian let out a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ve picked you for a reason, boy. And it sure as hell wasn’t for some silly coin, I’m well adept in that department. I saw something in you when this first started. I saw a fire that I’ve seen in very few people. But you’re letting that fame go out. _

_ “You’ve gone off the path. You’ve left the team for some low-level crime rings with that fire-wielding minx. You’ve used our training to punish the guilty, not protect the innocent. But most importantly, you’ve left our girl to pick up the pieces of the Last Line all by herself. You and I both know she is one song young bird, but not even Cleo can hold up the for with a broken heart. Do you think this is what I wanted?” _

_ With the shock of actually seeing Killian gone, his words finally seeped in and Dante reacted defensively. “Where the hell do you get off telling me I’m ‘off my path’! You left me to find my own path. You taught Cleo instead of me. You left me!” _

_ Dante took several heated steps away from Killian and turned his back. Letting hot tears build his eyes. He thought about the day he and Cleo got into their big argument; thought of her heartbroken expression as he stormed out of the manor “Cleo’s always been stronger than me. She did better with me gone.” His voice broke as he thought about appearing out of the shadows to see Killian’s lifeless body, “I couldn’t breathe in that house. I-I had to go away because I couldn’t stand the thought of you being gone.” _

_ “I may be many things but I am not one who leaves a task unfinished. I would not have made the decision I did if I thought it would do you a disservice.” Killian took a feeble step towards Dante. “I may have left you before we got to do all that we should have, but I’ll be damned if I let you put our training to waste. You need to pull yourself back together and get back to the fight. Cleo needs you more than she’s willing to admit, Bonnie needs you too, but most importantly the Last Line needs you to keep them all together.” _

_ Dante turned and glared daggers at Killian. “Who are you to tell me what to do? If it weren’t for you and your stupid team, I might actually have a shot at being normal. I could have a relationship with my real family! Not some rag-tag group of freaks you pulled together. I would have a dad if it weren’t for  _ you _ !” _

_ Killian opened and closed his mouth before sighing. “I guess I could have shown it better, but all those times I made you run more laps than Cleo, spar longer than Cleo or pushed you to your breaking point, that was me trying to prepare you. That was me trying to make sure you would be safe if I wasn’t with you. I was just trying to protect you. I know I wasn’t your father Dante, but boy… you were my son. And I couldn’t have asked for anyone better than you.” _

_ Dante’s spirit lifted at the older man’s words and started towards his open arms. But he just ran straight through his arms. Confused, Dante turned around to see a faint glow of familiar UV energy. _

Dante woke up disoriented and gasping for air. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dark and he took notice of the figure in his open doorway.

###  _ Cleo _

“I-I’m sorry,” she froze under Dante’s gaze and clutched the doorknob in a vice grip. “It’s just, I heard you— I heard you screaming down the hall and came to check on you. You were thrashing so I just, peeked in and saw you were having a nightmare.”

“You just have no fucking boundaries do you.” The malice in Dante’s voice made Cleo visibly flinch back, but still, she remained in the doorway.  _ He was just hurting from the nightmare _ , she told herself. But his anger quickly became palpable in the air and within seconds he was drawing the shadows to him to form a terrifying creature.

Reluctantly Cleo prepared to fight. She let go of the door handle and conjured her battle mask while unsheathing her dual daggers. She lowered herself into a defensive stance and looked up to face Dante but was taken aback when she saw him directly in front of her, staring down at her with an intense gaze. 

And then she was smashed against his chest. With his arms wrapped around her in a bear hug. So quietly she almost didn’t hear it, Dante whispered, “Thank you.”

Cleo dropped her illusion and daggers and returned the hug. Dante’s shoulder’s heaved as sobs wracked through him. They stayed like that, Dante hugging Cleo in only pajama bottoms with her daggers on the floor near their feet until his tears slowed to a halt. Dante broke apart the hug as soon as he stopped crying and furiously wiped away the tear tracks on his cheeks. Her heart squeezed for the boy she thought of as her brother, and she knew that it was time he saw something important.

“Come on, there’s something I think you need to see.” Cleo grabbed his hand and dragged him down the winding halls of Beckett Manor until they reached the East wing. Cleo stops just as they’re about to pass Killian’s bedroom door and clutches the leather cord hanging from her neck. “I haven’t gone back here that much. It’s still fresh, you know? But Mark needed some of the notes he kept and… He needed notes and I didn’t want anyone else back here, so I came and stumbled on something special.”

They walk a little bit farther until they reach a private library. Dante raises an eyebrow at Cleo and is about to speak when she moves to a blank part of a wall and pushes a secret button to reveal a shadowbox. There’s a tuxedo. With a matching top hat and cane. And a note taped to the glass that she motions for Dante to read.

#  _ Reserved for Dante Thorne, the only person I’d want to carry the legacy of the Sharp Dressers. Do us proud kid. _

#  _ -Killian Beckett _

Emotion flashed across Dante’s face as he gently unstuck the note from the glass. His eyes raked over and over what were probably the last words written by their mentor he would ever read. “How did you find this?”

Cleo shrugged. “It was an accident.”


End file.
